RS

MEMBER DIARY

The Repentance Movement

I find myself, surely like many of you, pulled in numerous directions right now. I end up attending meeting after meeting, being inundated with an abundance of information. There’s work to be done, but the distractions just keep coming. We find ourselves fighting about bylaws, and, granted, bylaws need to be in place in the GOP and other caucuses, and they need to be the right bylaws. While we fight about these things, there is the further perceived need to all gather together, in fancy dress, to tell each other how wonderful we are, how we’ve made such a great difference. We reward “maverick” activists, who buck the principles that we claim to hold most dear. Inside these groups we find even more distractions, sometimes in the form of people. Such people continually usurp every good and necessary issue and conversation in order to fulfill their own need for self importance. All issues, no matter how vital, become about nothing more than their favorite subject: the subject of “me.” While distractions abound, matters of imperative concern can fall by the wayside.

As with most problems, we cannot hope to put these distractions aside without an understanding of what the root cause. The cause is, at least in large part, idolatry, the tentacles of which can be found in many areas of life and society.

Throughout our lives, we’ve been trained to put our government on a pedestal. It seems as though every societal or economic problem we’re confronted with can be solved with the right government program. And, when that program fails, the next one will surely work! We, as Republicans, are generally inclined to speak against this particular form of idolatry. But when we conclude with condemning that form of idolatry, we actively and, sometimes eagerly, engage in another: We must revere the Republican Party! We’re told to leave Republican politicians alone; “Don’t attack your teammates!” so the reprimand goes. No matter how far down the path of progressivism (or other anti-liberty ideology) that a politician goes, to speak and work against them is akin to heresy. Sir Winston Churchill once said that socialism is “the abject worship of the state,” yet here we are engaging in our own type of worship: The worship of our Party.

A friend of mine told me recently that the Liberty Movement is really a call to repentance, and he’s absolutely right. Our Party needs to repent. We have regularly been on the wrong side of important Constitutional issues. Please hear me clearly on this: I’m not saying that the Democrats are on the right side; rather, that we have joined them on the wrong side. We could go through example after example, ad infinitum. We all know that there have been usurpations from those on our side of the aisle. Violations of our Constitution, the rule of law, the intent of our Founders and more, have taken place, yes, even inside our Republican Party. The most offensive and dangerous of any of our wrongs is this: That we have attempted to replace the one true God with the god of The Party. We stand for a return to truly limited government, for the rule of law and for a return to strict adherence to the Constitution. Yet we, in the Liberty Movement, must be wary of doing the same thing; in fact, we can see it happening already. All of us, no matter the party affiliation, also must be vigilant in putting to death the ultimate idol; the idol of “self.”

The Constitution is important. It is the “how” of our Republic. It outlines what government is and, more importantly, is not allowed to do. Even this, as important as it is, is insufficient if we are to save our nation and restore liberty for our children and our grandchildren. Our ideals must have their foundations built on nothing less than Christ and His Holy Word, the Bible. Even the Founders, some of whom may not have been Christians, such as Benjamin Franklin, understood the importance of God and obedience to Scripture. Not simply the portions of the Bible that deal with such things as “this is allowed and this is not,” but, rather, in the fundamental view that all men are created equal and that all men are fallen and depraved (“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” Jer. 17:9, which, incidentally, is the verse our Founders used when creating the Separation of Powers). Only when we, too, realize this truth and that we need a real savior (the government, a political party and political movements don’t count here) can we ever hope to experience true liberty in our nation once again, for, “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”( 2 Cor. 3:17)